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a gdzie Packer?

08.10.07, 12:50
jest to smutne, ale 3 (albo nawet i 4) pokolenia australijskiej
rodziny Packer pracowaly przez setki lat w pocie czola i rezultat
tego jest taki ze dali sie na przestrzeni ostatnich kilkunastu lat
wyprzedzic przez 14-tu golodupcow z ZSRR..sad dzis Packers nie
mieszcza sie juz nawet w pierwszej 100-tce
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_billionaires_%282007%29
Obserwuj wątek
    • kan_z_oz Re: a gdzie Packer? 08.10.07, 13:41
      kuba.peerelski napisał:

      > jest to smutne, ale 3 (albo nawet i 4) pokolenia australijskiej
      > rodziny Packer pracowaly przez setki lat w pocie czola i rezultat
      > tego jest taki ze dali sie na przestrzeni ostatnich kilkunastu lat
      > wyprzedzic przez 14-tu golodupcow z ZSRR..sad dzis Packers nie
      > mieszcza sie juz nawet w pierwszej 100-tce
      > en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_billionaires_%282007%29

      ODP: Misiu, nie znasz przysłowia? W trzecim pokoleniu wszystko
      zostanie przewalone.
      Polecam Ci niezwykle interesującą książkę na temat Packerów; "Rise
      and rise of Packers".

      Pozdrawiam
      Kan

      Pozdrawiam
      Kan
      • kagan-owski Re: a gdzie Packer? 08.10.07, 19:07
        Packer senior - dalbym mu za sam wyglad 10 lat bez zastanowienia. A
        jak poczytalem, skad on wzial fortune, to od razu wyrok podwyzszylem
        na dozywocie... Oi nie nie ukradli tylko pierwszego miliona. CALA
        ich fortuna pochodzi z kradziezy. Kradli zreszta w najlepszym
        towarzystwie, lacznie z premierem rzadu federalnego... sad
    • kagan-owski Re: a gdzie Packer? 09.10.07, 10:08
      www.wsws.org/articles/2006/jan2006/pack-j05.shtml
      WSWS : News & Analysis : Australia & South Pacific

      Kerry Packer (1937-2005)
      Why the endless eulogies for Australia’s richest man?
      By Rick Kelly
      5 January 2006
      Use this version to print | Send this link by email | Email the
      author

      The Australian ruling elite has spent much of the holiday season
      eulogising the late Kerry Packer, who died December 26. Packer was
      Australia’s wealthiest individual, with a personal fortune estimated
      at $7 billion (US$5.1 billion) at the time of his death. His
      Publishing & Broadcasting Limited company has a range of interests
      spread across television, magazines, and casinos and gambling.

      Prime Minister John Howard called a special news conference on
      December 27 to declare his sadness for the demise of a man he
      described as a “friend”. Packer’s death, Howard insisted,
      represented “a very big loss for Australia because he was a
      passionate believer in this country”. The government has announced
      that it is holding a state memorial service for the billionaire, to
      be held next month. Labor leader Kim Beazley said that he would miss
      his conversations with Packer, whose views “were underpinned with a
      profound patriotism and a nationalist approach”.

      The media joined the effusive praise for Packer. The Sydney Morning
      Herald’s December 28 edition, headlined “Death of a Giant”, devoted
      no less than seven full pages to various aspects of his life and
      death. In the days since, coverage of his funeral, his son and heir
      Jamie, and various other aspects of Packer’s life has been no less
      exhaustive.

      What accounts for this extraordinary spectacle?

      Packer himself was a particularly philistine and boorish individual.
      He was poorly educated, and despised books and the arts. (“The
      ultimate purgatory would be to go to the Opera House and hear Joan
      Sutherland sing,” he once said.) He had a vicious and cruel sense of
      humour, enjoyed bullying his employees and federal politicians
      alike, and esteemed nothing beyond his own wealth and power. As
      Packer’s unofficial biographer Paul Barry commented, “Despite his
      vast wealth, he was a man with no obvious sense of civic duty. His
      god was money and he worshipped devoutly.”

      That such an individual has been so fulsomely praised casts a sharp
      light upon the nature of social relations in contemporary Australia.
      Contrary to the long-standing myths about Australia being
      an “egalitarian” society, for the ruling elite there is but one
      relevant measure for assessing the value of an individual’s life—
      namely, just how much money that person has amassed. Everything else
      is secondary.

      The fact that Kerry Packer’s business empire was ultimately based on
      two factors—politically-influenced state regulation and systematic
      tax avoidance—has deterred none of his admirers. On the contrary,
      one senses that much of the establishment’s high praise is driven by
      envy for the billionaire’s ability to amass a fortune through
      largely parasitic and non-productive enterprises.

      The Australian ruling class, after all, has little to parade beyond
      its money and possessions. The nation-state was founded as an
      outpost of the British Empire, with the wealth of the elite largely
      derived from the pastoral and mining exploitation of a land
      violently seized from the indigenous population. The ruling class
      can point to no noble historical episodes of political sacrifice and
      revolutionary struggle, and has always been characterised by
      parasitism and backwardness.

      Packer can only be understood as both a product and representative
      of the Australian ruling class as a whole. Its commemorations have
      thus taken the form of an open celebration of itself.


      The rise of the Packer empire

      The origins of Packer’s enormous wealth can be traced back to Kerry
      Packer’s grandfather, Robert Clyde (R.C.) Packer. The son of a
      colonial customs official in Tasmania, R.C. Packer moved to Sydney
      in 1900, one year before the federated Australian nation-state was
      founded. After first working as a journalist, R.C. helped found the
      popular Smith’s Weekly newspaper in 1919, which was followed by the
      Daily Guardian in 1923.

      While both newspapers featured populist editorials and muckraking
      investigations of political corruption, Packer always had stridently
      right-wing sympathies. His newspapers distinguished themselves
      during the Depression by accusing New South Wales Labor Premier Jack
      Lang of being a communist, and by publishing favourable reports of
      public meetings held by the New Guard fascist movement. According to
      a military intelligence report from the period, R.C. Packer was
      himself a New Guard member.

      In 1932, R.C.’s son Frank launched his own publishing career when he
      went into business with “Red Ted” Theodore, former trade union
      militant and Labor federal treasurer. Theodore and Packer took over
      the Australian Workers’ Union (AWU) newspaper, the World, after
      promising to increase its circulation, restore profitability, and
      maintain the paper’s staff. The two men then cut a secret deal with
      the publishers of the major Sydney daily the Sun to shut down the
      World. According to the terms of the arrangement—negotiated for the
      Sun by none other than R.C. Packer —Frank Packer and Ted Theodore
      received 86,500 pounds to liquidate the World. The AWU received just
      100 pounds of this money, which did not cover even a fraction of the
      redundancy payouts the union had to pay the World’s sacked employees.

      Packer maintained his lease over the AWU’s printing presses, which
      he then used to launch the Australian Women’s Weekly. The magazine
      featured advice on fashion, cooking, and child care and was a great
      success, providing the springboard for Packer to expand his
      interests across the newspaper and magazine industry. His publishing
      interests gave him enormous political influence, particularly in New
      South Wales through the leading Sydney daily newspaper, the Daily
      Telegraph, which he owned from 1936 to 1972.

      The publisher was notorious for using his media interests to air his
      reactionary views. In one infamous Telegraph editorial, Frank Packer
      ruminated on the 1967 urban violence in the US. “If every time Negro
      revolutionaries decided to burn and kill, those maintaining the law
      killed 500 Negroes, the Negroes might decide to stop burning and
      killing,” he wrote.

      Kerry Packer, born in 1937, received a brutal upbringing from his
      tyrannical father. He was packed off to a boarding school, which
      happened to be a few hundred metres down the road from the family
      home, when he was just five years old. His academic performance was
      always poor; his father called him “Boofhead”, while his mother
      often referred to him as “Dummy”. After leaving school, Packer went
      to work for his father, and for a period was forced to work as a
      cleaner on the Daily Telegraph’s printing presses.

      It was only in 1972, when Kerry’s elder brother Clyde broke
      relations with his father and quit the Packer dynasty, that Frank
      Packer recognised Kerry as his heir. Two years later the millionaire
      patriarch died, bequeathing Kerry a $100 million company,
      Consolidated Press Holdings, which owned Channel 9 in Sydney and
      Melbourne, and a range of popular magazines.


      Kerry Packer takes the helm

      While Frank Packer had always focussed on developing his publishing
      interests, Kerry recognised the growing importance of television.
      The son imported a series of prog
      • kagan-owski Re: a gdzie Packer? 09.10.07, 10:09
        Kerry Packer takes the helm

        While Frank Packer had always focussed on developing his publishing
        interests, Kerry recognised the growing importance of television.
        The son imported a series of programs from the US to boost Channel
        9’s ratings, and placed particular emphasis on developing the
        network’s coverage of popular sporting events.

        In 1977, the Australian Cricket Board refused to accede to Kerry
        Packer’s demand that his network be granted exclusive broadcast
        rights. (“There’s a little bit of the whore in all of us,” Packer
        claimed to have told the Board. “Gentlemen, name your price.”wink He
        then signed up 50 international cricketers and formed his own
        competition, rivalling the established world game. Packer’s
        initiative, however, faced massive losses as his cricketers were
        denied access to the major stadiums, and poor crowds resulted in
        inadequate advertising revenue.

        But Packer’s fortunes were soon to turn. The state Labor government
        led by Neville Wran stepped in to pass legislation that allowed it
        to sack the 13 members of the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) Trust who
        had banned Packer from using the venue. The government later
        announced that floodlights would be installed at the ground; two-
        thirds of the $1.3 million expense would be borne by SCG members,
        one-third by NSW taxpayers. Packer incurred none of the costs, but
        reaped the enduring rewards, as the enhanced ground helped launch
        his highly successful day-night cricket matches.

        Much of the media coverage following Packer’s death has celebrated
        his involvement in world cricket. Various commentators have praised
        the billionaire for boosting the players’ pay, enhancing television
        coverage, and promoting the sport around the world. The Australian
        cricket team even donned black armbands in Packer’s honour at the
        traditional Boxing Day test match. All of this coverage overlooked
        the fact that Packer’s intervention into cricket was driven by one
        sole concern—making a profit.

        The Wran government’s role in saving World Series Cricket marked a
        turning point for the Packer empire. Frank Packer had always been a
        staunch supporter of the Liberal Party, and ran frequent editorials
        condemning alleged communist influence in the trade union movement
        and the Labor Party. In 1972, Channel 9’s influential “A Current
        Affair” television program described Labor leader Gough Whitlam’s
        agenda as “the marijuana dreams of a Utopian Disneyland”.

        By the time Kerry Packer took over, however, the Labor Party had
        abandoned the old social reformist program that had so incensed his
        father. After the governor-general sacked the Whitlam government in
        1975, senior Labor figures concluded that they could no longer
        afford to antagonise big business and its media mouthpieces by
        campaigning on a platform of government spending on social
        infrastructure and concessions to the working class. In its place a
        pro-business and “free market” program was advanced. This lurch to
        the right was bound up with profound economic shifts—principally
        Australia’s deepening integration into the international capitalist
        market and the end of the post-war boom.

        The end result was that Kerry Packer came to recognise that he could
        do business with the Laborites. He backed Labor in the 1978 New
        South Wales state election, with all his suburban newspapers
        editorialising on behalf of the party. Wran’s 30-minute election
        speech was broadcast by Channel 9 in primetime, while the Liberals’
        speech was not shown in full at all.

        Following the Wran government’s re-election, a consortium headed by
        Packer and his fellow media magnate Rupert Murdoch won the contract
        to run the new state lottery. The highly lucrative deal was awarded
        in highly dubious circumstances, amid rumours of corruption and
        bribery, and came to symbolise the state Labor government’s cosy
        relationship with Packer.

        The entrepreneur also cultivated his connections with federal Labor
        figures. Most of these contacts were initially developed through
        John Ducker, who was NSW Labor Party president and secretary of the
        NSW Labor Council, as well as being a member of the Channel 9 Board.
        Ducker recommended Packer to his colleagues as a man “prepared to do
        business”.

        In the years leading up to the election of the federal Labor
        government led by Bob Hawke in 1983, Packer became close with Hawke
        and other senior figures, including soon-to-be treasurer and prime
        minister Paul Keating and Labor powerbroker Graham Richardson.
        Within the Hawke and Keating governments, Richardson became known as
        the “minister for Channel 9” due to his strident advocacy on behalf
        of Packer.


        “The Goanna”

        These Labor contacts proved invaluable in 1984, when the media
        magnate was accused of an extraordinary series of crimes, including
        involvement in drug trafficking, pornography, fraud, money
        laundering, and tax evasion. The allegations emerged during the
        Costigan Royal Commission into corruption in the Painters and
        Dockers Union, and were published in the National Times, which
        codenamed Packer “The Goanna”.

        While Packer strenuously denied all the charges, he was unable to
        explain why enormous sums of his cash had circulated through a
        number of criminal figures. “Packer was anxious to deny that moneys
        were used for drugs, as were the others,” Costigan wrote. “Their
        problem was the reluctance to disclose the real purpose of the cash
        payments, for fear that on exposure they would be prosecuted: thus
        the half-truth, not the whole... Those who purvey half-truths have
        only themselves to blame for the consequences.”

        According to Paul Barry, all of the charges, with the exception of
        tax evasion, were false. Whatever the truth of the matter, it is
        testament to Packer’s general character that the allegations were so
        widely believed—including by many who worked immediately under him.

        The Hawke government ensured that the Royal Commission was not given
        time to fully investigate all the accusations. In March 1987 Lionel
        Bowen, the attorney-general, under strong pressure from the prime
        minister, issued a highly unusual statement to parliament which
        cleared Packer of all charges.

        The same year, the billionaire told ABC Radio that Hawke had done
        great things for business and that he would be voting Labor at the
        next election. In return, the prime minister heaped fulsome praise
        on Packer at a 1987 Businessman of the Year ceremony, describing him
        as “a close personal friend” and a “very great Australian”. Packer
        was later heard telling a friend that he wished Hawke would not be
        quite so deferential in public.

        The Costigan investigation shed light on some of Packer’s methods
        for avoiding paying tax, which saw him under investigation by the
        Australian Tax Office for most of the 1980s. As the entrepreneur
        forthrightly declared to the Australian parliament in 1991, he felt
        no obligation to pay any tax at all if he could help it. During the
        1980s, Packer employed what were known as “bottom of the harbour”
        tax schemes, which featured complex arrangements involving the
        concealment of companies within subcompanies within foreign
        subsidiaries—all to hide company profits from the taxman. Millions
        of dollars in untraceable cash was moved around between different
        companies and individuals—including a number of convicted fraudsters
        and con-men.

        Despite numerous investigations, Packer was never prosecuted for tax
        evasion. His tax lawyers defended the legality of their client’s
        manoeuvres,
        • kagan-owski Re: a gdzie Packer? 09.10.07, 10:10
          “The Goanna”

          These Labor contacts proved invaluable in 1984, when the media
          magnate was accused of an extraordinary series of crimes, including
          involvement in drug trafficking, pornography, fraud, money
          laundering, and tax evasion. The allegations emerged during the
          Costigan Royal Commission into corruption in the Painters and
          Dockers Union, and were published in the National Times, which
          codenamed Packer “The Goanna”.

          While Packer strenuously denied all the charges, he was unable to
          explain why enormous sums of his cash had circulated through a
          number of criminal figures. “Packer was anxious to deny that moneys
          were used for drugs, as were the others,” Costigan wrote. “Their
          problem was the reluctance to disclose the real purpose of the cash
          payments, for fear that on exposure they would be prosecuted: thus
          the half-truth, not the whole... Those who purvey half-truths have
          only themselves to blame for the consequences.”

          According to Paul Barry, all of the charges, with the exception of
          tax evasion, were false. Whatever the truth of the matter, it is
          testament to Packer’s general character that the allegations were so
          widely believed—including by many who worked immediately under him.

          The Hawke government ensured that the Royal Commission was not given
          time to fully investigate all the accusations. In March 1987 Lionel
          Bowen, the attorney-general, under strong pressure from the prime
          minister, issued a highly unusual statement to parliament which
          cleared Packer of all charges.

          The same year, the billionaire told ABC Radio that Hawke had done
          great things for business and that he would be voting Labor at the
          next election. In return, the prime minister heaped fulsome praise
          on Packer at a 1987 Businessman of the Year ceremony, describing him
          as “a close personal friend” and a “very great Australian”. Packer
          was later heard telling a friend that he wished Hawke would not be
          quite so deferential in public.

          The Costigan investigation shed light on some of Packer’s methods
          for avoiding paying tax, which saw him under investigation by the
          Australian Tax Office for most of the 1980s. As the entrepreneur
          forthrightly declared to the Australian parliament in 1991, he felt
          no obligation to pay any tax at all if he could help it. During the
          1980s, Packer employed what were known as “bottom of the harbour”
          tax schemes, which featured complex arrangements involving the
          concealment of companies within subcompanies within foreign
          subsidiaries—all to hide company profits from the taxman. Millions
          of dollars in untraceable cash was moved around between different
          companies and individuals—including a number of convicted fraudsters
          and con-men.

          Despite numerous investigations, Packer was never prosecuted for tax
          evasion. His tax lawyers defended the legality of their client’s
          manoeuvres, and always found new ways of fully exploiting the
          system. Financial deregulation introduced by Labor in the 1980s
          permitted Packer’s Consolidated Press company to slash its effective
          tax rate from 39 percent in 1984 to just 14 percent in 1986. A 1987
          tax system reform also introduced by the Hawke government allowed
          Packer to reduce his personal income tax to 9 percent. Today, much
          of PBL is run through a holding company in the Bahamas, an
          established tax haven, and the business is understood to pay less
          than 10 percent in tax.

          In recent days, Packer’s admirers in the media and in Canberra have
          rhapsodised over his supposed generosity and philanthropy. Almost
          every day a new story of the “big man’s” selflessness has been
          promoted—from his one-off sponsorship of a group of disabled
          children’s trip to Disneyland, to the annual donation of his old
          shoes to the Salvation Army. If only Packer had paid the same rate
          of tax as do ordinary working Australians, however, many, many more
          hundreds of millions would have been available to the socially and
          economically disadvantaged in the form of public funds for health,
          education, and other social services.


          Packer and the politicians

          Packer’s media interests in Australia have always been dependent on
          media concentration and ownership laws, which regulate everything
          from the number of television networks permitted, the level of
          foreign ownership of media outlets, and the possible ownership of
          both newspapers and television stations. The Hawke government—like
          the Keating and Howard governments following it—formulated these
          regulations, not on the basis of the real interests of the
          Australian people, but first and foremost with the interests of
          Packer and his ilk in mind.

          In 1986, the Labor government issued a series of new cross media
          ownership laws that became known as “Packer’s package”. Part of the
          new legislation permitted Packer’s Sydney and Melbourne Channel 9
          stations to become one national network, which vastly increased its
          value. In a particularly famous deal, Alan Bond purchased the
          national Channel 9 network for $1.025 billion. Packer then bought
          the network back from a bankrupted Bond three years later for about
          $200 million.

          Packer was notorious for his cruel and malicious treatment of those
          who worked under him. He was fond of abusing people in front of
          their colleagues, before telling them, “You’re f——— stupid. Now tell
          me you’re stupid and why you’re stupid.” In private, Packer treated
          politicians likewise. He was accustomed to summonsing politicians at
          will whenever he wished to issue a new demand. “If Packer rang Hawke
          and said he wanted to see me,” one minister said, “then I’d be on
          the plane to see him.” There are many accounts of a displeased
          Packer towering over government ministers and unleashing obscenity-
          filled tirades.

          Packer’s famous appearance before a parliamentary media enquiry in
          1991 provided a rare insight into the real relationship between
          Australia’s ultra-wealthy and the elected members of parliament. The
          billionaire contemptuously lambasted the parliamentarians who had
          dared to challenge his interest in taking over Fairfax, publisher of
          the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age. Packer denounced the inquiry
          as an “intellectual wank”, “crap”, and “claptrap”. Politicians from
          all the established parties cowered before him. Their abject
          subservience was best summed up when Packer angrily dismissed a
          question asked by Labor “left” Jeannette McHugh. “I’m sorry, Mr.
          Packer,” McHugh quickly replied.

          The entire affair left no one in any doubt as to who was really in
          charge. In a particularly crude and unapologetic manner, Packer’s
          performance provided a graphic demonstration of the reality of
          Australia’s “democracy”. The parliamentary set-up relies on the
          popular illusion that ordinary citizens periodically elect
          politicians who represent them and rule in their interests. But for
          all the elaborate trappings of elections and parliamentary
          tradition, the reality is that wealth equals power, and parliament
          and its members are, in the final analysis, nothing more than
          servants of capital.

          Reference: Paul Barry, The Rise and Rise of Kerry Packer (Sydney,
          Bantam, 1993)

          • kuba.peerelski Re: a gdzie Packer? 09.10.07, 23:06
            na szczescie bozia dala malo talentow Jamesowi, spadkobiercy
            Kerry'ego, a w dodatku obdarzyla go cala gama problemow psychicznych
            wynikajacych z niemocy w relacjach z kobietami, co powinno
            skutecznie sprowadzic ten zrobiony na oszustwach biznes spowrotem do
            parteru
            • kagan-owski Re: a gdzie Packer? 09.10.07, 23:28
              Innymi slowy, sprawiedliwosci stanie sie zadosc! Zadka to rzecz na
              kontynencie slynacym z kangurzych sadow (kangaroo courts)... wink

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